


The Repetition of a (Good) Thing

by arcadian_dream



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadian_dream/pseuds/arcadian_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are Muggle police officers,  and are less-than-thrilled to discover who has been appointed as their superior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Repetition of a (Good) Thing

Harry had hardly stepped over the threshold of the squad room when he was set upon by Ron Weasley.

“Have you heard?” Ron asked, almost frantic. His usual pale, freckled features were lightly marked by a splotchy red – it was the kind of red that Harry knew all-too-well; it was the persistent flush of Ron's anger.

“Have I heard what?” Harry responded, moving past Ron to his desk. He slung his bag down on the cluttered surface and sat down; Ron took a seat across from him.

“Have you heard about the new bloke they're bringing in. To take over. Today.”

“Today?” Harry said, a little taken aback, before managing to order his thoughts on the matter. “Well, it's a bit sudden, I suppose … but we have been waiting months for the boys upstairs to appoint someone, so it's hardly a surprise, Ron.”

“I know that,” Ron said, “a nd it's not about the suddenness – or un-suddenness of it all, Harry – it's about who they've chosen for the job.”

Harry furrowed his brow. “Why … I mean, who've they—”

Harry, though, did not get the opportunity to finish asking his question: glancing over Ron's shoulder at the door, he found his curiosity sated.

“Malfoy?” Harry hissed. His eyes darted from the cool, grey eyes and angular planes of Draco Malfoy's face, to Ron, and back again. “They've appointed Malfoy?!”

Ron nodded. He leaned forward. “That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“But—” Harry paused in an attempt to adequately process this new information. “But Malfoy was in the academy with us; he graduated with us. How is it even possible that he's—”

“How do you think?” Ron said with bitter rhetoric.

“His father?”

“His father,” Ron said, confirming Harry's suspicions of the department's nepotism.

“Bloody hell, Ron,” Harry said. “Bloody hell.”

“I know, right?” Ron said, as he began to shuffle and sort the paperwork that had been piling up on his own desk. “Like we don't have enough to deal with.”

As Ron spoke, Harry eased back in his chair. He was busy contemplating the situation when he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder.

“Harry?” Nymphadora Tonks said from behind.

“Tonks,” Harry said, swivelling around in his chair to face his co-worker. “What's up?”

Tonks nodded in the direction of what was, much to Harry's – and Ron's, and, given the expression of displeasure on Tonks' face, most of the squad's – chagrin. “He wants to see you.”

“Already?” Ron said, looking up from his desk.

Tonks shrugged. “Apparently.”

Harry groaned; he got to his feet with a dejected sigh. “It begins,” he said under his breath, “It begins.”

*

“What d'you want, Malfoy?” Harry said coldly as he idled in the doorway of Draco's office.

“Come in, Potter.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow; he looked about the room suspiciously.

“Christ, Potter,” Draco said, “just come in, would you. And close the door behind you.”

Harry narrowed his eyes; he glared at Draco, but eventually complied with the request.

“Well,” Harry said. “What is it?”

“Take a seat. ” Draco gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

“I'd rather stand.”

Draco shrugged. “Suit yourself, Potter.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet; he rounded the bare, dark mahogany-coloured timber desk and perched on its edge.

“I thought it might be a good idea to get you in here,” Draco said, “h ave a quick chat; clear the air.”

“Clear the air?”

Draco nodded. “Yes, Potter. Just make sure there aren't going to be any problems. You and me – well, we don't exactly – you know.”

“Hmph,” Harry grunted indiscriminately. He scanned Draco's face for the flicker of the old, insufferable Malfoy smugness; for the curvature of a smirk.

Nothing.

“Was that it?”

Draco nodded. “Unless there was something else; something you wanted, Potter?”

A stilted, barking laugh escaped Harry's lips. “I don't want anything from you, Malfoy,” he said, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper.

Draco sighed in exasperation; he rolled his eyes. “For God's sake, Potter,” Draco started, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. A moment later, Tonks peered around the open door.

“There's been another one,” she said, addressing Harry.

“Shit,” Harry muttered and turned on his heel.

“Another what?” Draco asked, but received only the silence of his office in reply. “Another what?” he called out, following Harry and Tonks in haste.

*

The body was cold and stiff when they arrived.

“Any idea how long she's been here?” Harry asked.

“Coroner says it's hard to tell, it's been so cold lately,” Ron said to Harry as they looked about the grimy alleyway where the girl was found.

“Jesus, Ron,” Harry muttered under his breath. “Who would do something like this?”

Ron shrugged. “Don't know, mate,” he said with solemnity, “But it kinda makes me glad that I don't.”

*

Days of canvassing the neighbourhood and turning up nothing but dead-ends later, Harry headed into work early.

He needed the quiet, the solitude, to think this latest murder through; to figure out – well, anything. He thought that, if he were there early enough, he would at least get that; the solitude.

As he walked into the squad room, bleary-eyed with fatigue and his face chapped red by the bitter morning air, he realised he was wrong.

“Malfoy?” Harry mumbled under his breath as he dropped his satchel to the floor, before crossing the floor to Draco's office.

He rapped his knuckles against the door's veneer; it was still streaky with the residue of cleaning products.

“Malfoy?” Harry ventured, easing the door open.

“Potter,” Draco said. “Come in.” His voice was thin and reedy, almost sheer; as though if it could be held up before one's eyes, it would crumble beneath something so slight as mere rays of light.

“You're here early,” Harry said tentatively.

“Still here,” Draco croaked.

“You didn't go home last night?”

“Or the night before,” Draco clarified. He leaned back in his chair, and, raising his hands to his face, he pressed his palms to his eyes, as though the gentle kneading motion and the blackness and flickering dots behind his eyelids could erase the images of the crime scene photographs, or the horrors of the reports he had spent the night poring over.

Harry blinked a few times in quick succession, confused. “What for?” he asked Draco.

“What do you mean, 'what for?', Potter?”

“Come on, Malfoy. It's not like you need to be here, pulling these kinds of hours.”

“What're you on about, Potter?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don't worry about it,” he said. He turned to leave when he felt cold fingers curling over his wrist. He paused, mid-stride, and looked back over his shoulder.

“Potter?” Draco persisted. “What are you talking about?”

Harry sighed and turned to face him, shaking himself loose from Draco's grip. “The only reason you're here, Malfoy, is because of your father. Of who and what he is; was. It's got nought to do with—”

Draco narrowed his eyes. He shook his head. “You're unbelievable, Potter,” he said. “You really believe that, don't you?”

Harry shrugged.

“No-one does this job because of their father; I don't care who he is.”

“Right,” Harry retorted, “s o you're telling me that the reason you joined the force had nothing - _nothing_ \- to do with that fact that you're Lucius Malfoy's son?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Yes, you did. You just—”

“ _No,_ I didn't. Just … listen, would you?”

“Fine,” Harry said, folding his arms across his chest. “I'm listening.”

Draco took a deep breath. “When I joined the force … yes, I joined because of my father, because of what I grew up with; because of what was familiar to me . But you don't stay in this job for anyone else, Potter. Not even if your father is Lucius fucking Malfoy.”

Harry swallowed. “Yeah. Well. I wouldn't know about that.”

“No, you wouldn't.”

An awkward silence descended, and Harry tore his gaze from Draco's, looking to the floor. Draco cleared his throat and moved to brush past Harry. As he did, Harry allowed his hands, still folded across his chest, to fall to his sides and skim Draco's forearm. The lingering touch of his fingertips caused Draco to stop in his tracks.

“Potter?” Draco said, looking back at Harry.

Harry swallowed. He blushed and stepped back from Draco, but he said nothing.

He couldn't believe this was happening again: he couldn't believe the prickling heat on his skin in the instant his fingers had brushed against Draco; he could believe the dryness in his mouth and the thudding in his chest.

He couldn't believe that in the years that had passed, there still existed within him the fire, the spark, that only Draco Malfoy had ever been able to ignite.

 _Shit_ , Harry thought, and rushed out of the office, out of the squad room, and down into the street.

*

An hour and a half later, the squad room was buzzing as the team set to work again. Ron and Tonks arrived together (as they had been doing more and more frequently of late), but Harry was still nowhere to be found.

*

Harry was in the kitchen, a bottle of scotch whiskey in one hand and a tumbler in the other, when he heard a knock on his front door.

“Coming,” he called out as he hastily finished pouring himself another drink, the amber liquid sloshing against the circular wall of glass.

He shuffled out of the kitchen, through his lounge, and to the entryway. He opened the door and when he did, he swore.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked Draco. Leaving the door open, he turned his back on Draco and headed back into the lounge.

“Where'd you go today?” Draco asked, closing the front door before following Harry inside.

“Out.”

“Out?”

“Yep.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not with you,” Harry said, draining his drink. He fell back against the nearby sofa and sunk into the plush cushions.

“Jesus, Potter,” Draco said. He took a seat beside Harry. “This isn't going to be a problem, is it?”

“What?”

“This. ” Draco paused. “Us.”

Harry scoffed. “Us, Malfoy?”

“Well, you know. That time. Back when we were in the academy together. I mean, you said that—”

“I know what I said,” Harry interrupted.

“And?”

“And nothing. It was nothing. It's still nothing. In fact,” Harry said as he stood up and stumbled forward, “I don't even know what you're doing here.”

“Well,” Draco said with a smirk, “at least we agree on that.”

Harry lowered his eyes, looking searchingly at Draco's face; he arched an eyebrow. “Who would've thought, huh?”

Draco's smirk widened into a smile. “Well,” he said, getting up from the sofa with a groan. “I'll see you tomorrow, Potter.”

Harry nodded. Draco sauntered to the front door. He had one hand on the doorknob when he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder, the palm curving over his clavicle. He paused.

“Potter?”

Harry inhaled deeply; he closed his eyes as the air filled his lungs, and he breathed out. “Stay for a drink, yeah, Malfoy?”

Draco bowed his head. “Alright,” he said quietly, “one drink.”

Harry, intensifying his hold on Draco's shoulder, guided him so that they were facing each other; and once they were, Harry ran his hand over Draco's shoulder: over his skinny, clothed chest, before allowing it to rest on Draco's hip.

“Potter,” Draco mouthed, and Harry crushed his lips to Draco's, and Draco against the door.

He couldn't believe this was happening again, but as Draco's lips met his, and tongues pushed past teeth and tongues and everything became warm, wet caresses and grasping fingers, Harry's disbelief dissipated in an intoxicating haze of soft, shuddering breaths.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for H/D Parallel 2010.


End file.
